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Morris Bishop
Morris Gilbert Bishop (April 15, 1893 – November 20, 1973) was an American poet, academic, historian, biographer, and humorist. Life Raised in Canada and New York, he attended Cornell from 1910–1913, earning a Bachelor's degree in 1913 and then a Master of Arts degree in 1914. He then worked in the advertising industry and served in the army in World War I, returning to Cornell afterward to begin teaching in 1921,"About the editor," A Classical Storybook, Cornell University Press, 1970. and to earn a Ph.D. in 1926.Whitman, Alden (1973): "Morris Bishop, Scholar and Poet, Dies." The New York Times, November 22, 1973, p. 40. He was associated for the whole of his adult life with Cornell University, as alumnus, Kappa Alpha Professor of Romance Literature and University Historian. Bishop wrote the preeminent history of the university, A History of Cornell. He wrote biographies of Blaise Pascal, Samuel de Champlain]], La Rochefoucauld, Petrarch, and Saint Francis of Assisi. He also wrote A Gallery of Eccentrics; or, A set of twelve originals & extravagants from Elagabalus, the waggish emperor to Mr. Professor Porson, the tippling philologer, designed to serve, by example, for the correction of manners & for the edification of the ingenious, a 1928 book which profiled 12 unusual individuals. His 1955 Survey of French Literature was for many years a standard textbook (revised editions were published in 1965 and, posthumously, in 2005). During the late 1950s and early 1960s his reviews of books on historical topics often appeared in The New York Times. His 1968 history of the Middle Ages is still in print under the title The Middle Ages. He was a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur (in France), taught as a visiting professor at the University of Athens and Rice University and served as president of the Modern Language Association. He was the author of nearly 30 books including the comic mystery The Widening Stain. An expository look into Bishop's perspectives on American history can be found in his frequent contribution of articles to American Heritage Magazine. While he possessed extensive knowledge on the subject, his writings, particularly those concerning the Iroquois, are not without considerable ethnocentric bias.Bishop, Morris (1969): The End of the Iroquois" American Heritage Magazine, October, 1969, http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1969/6/1969_6_28.shtml Bishop's comic poems appeared in magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, The New Yorker, and Life. They were collected in two volumes, Paramount Poems (subtitled "If it isn't a PARAMOUNT it isn't a poem"), and Spilt Milk. His obituary in The New York Times mentions that he was a very facile composer of limericks, and notes, "Among Professor Bishop's other distinctions was his perception of the literary talent of Vladimir Nabokov, whom he brought to Cornell in 1948 as a teacher at a time when the Russian-born novelist was just making his mark in this country. Mr. Nabokov considered Professor Bishop as one of his closest friends in the United States and as a sort of spiritual father. They shared a fondness for exactitude in language and for japery as well as a common commitment to literature." Writing "How to Treat Elves," probably his best-known poem, describes a conversation with "The wee-est little elf." When asked what he does, the elf tells the narrator "'I dance 'n fwolic about,' said he, "'n scuttle about and play.'" A few stanzas describe his activities surprising butterflies, "fwigtening" Mr. Mole by jumping out and saying "Boo," and swinging on cobwebs. He asks the narrator "what do you think of that?" The narrator replies: "It gives me sharp and shooting pains To listen to such drool." I lifted up my foot and squashed The God damn little fool. Taking up Trevelyan's challenge to write didactic poetry, like Virgil's Georgics, on a modern subject, Bishop produced "Gas and Hot Air." It describes the operation of a car engine; "Vacuum pulls me; and I come! I come!" cries the gasoline, which reaches The secret bridal chamber where The earth-born gas first comes to kiss its bride, The heaven-born and yet inviolate air Which is, on this year's models, purified. "Ozymandias Revisited" reproduces the first two stanzas of Shelley's poem verbatim, then closes: :And on the pedestal these words appear: :"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings :Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" :Also the names of Emory P. Gray, :Mr. and Mrs. Dukes, and Oscar Baer :Of 17 West 4th St., Oyster Bay. Bennett Cerf's Houseful of Laughter (1963) included Bishop's 15 April 1950 The New Yorker composition "Song of the Pop-Bottlers", also compiled in A Bowl of Bishop (The Dial Press, Inc., 1954): :Pop bottles pop-bottles :In pop shops; :The pop-bottles Pop bottles :Poor Pop drops. :When Pop drops pop-bottles, :Pop-bottles plop! :Pop-bottle-tops topple! :Pop mops slop! :Stop! Pop'll drop bottle! :Stop, Pop, stop! :When Pop bottles pop-bottles, :Pop-bottles pop! Publications Poetry *''Paramount Poems''. New York: Minton, Balch, 1929. *''Spilt Milk''. New York: Putnam, 1942. *''A Bowl of Bishop: Museum thoughts, and other verses''. New York: Dial Press, 1954. *''The Best of Bishop: Light verse from The New Yorker and elsewhere'' (edited by Charlotte Putnam Reppert). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980. Novel *''The Widening Stain'' (as "W. Bolingbroke Johnson"). New York: Knopf / Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1942; London: Bodley Head, 1943; (facsimile edition), Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976; Lyons, CO: Rue Morgue, 2007. Non-fiction *''The Odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca''. New York & London: Century, 1933. *''Pascal: The life of genius''. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1936; London: George Bell, 1937; **also published as Blaise Pascal. New York: Dell, 1966. *''Ronsard: Prince of poets''. London & New York: Oxford University Press, 1940. *''Champlain: The life of fortitude''. New York: Knopf, 1948; London: Macdonald, 1949. *''White men came to the St. Lawrence; the French and the land they found''. Montreal: McGill University Press, 1961. *''Petrarch and His World''. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1963. *''Early Cornell, 1865-1900'' (A History of Cornell, Part 1). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967. *''The Horizon Book of the Middle Ages''. New York: American Heritage, 1968; London: Cassell, 1968; **also published as The Middle Ages. New York: American Heritage, 1970 **''The Pelican Book of the Middle Ages''. Harmondsworth, UK, & New York: Penguin Books, 1978. *''The Exotics: Being a collection of unique personalities and remarkable characters''. New York: American Heritage, 1969. *''Saint Francis of Assisi''. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974. *''Light Verse in America''. Portree, Isle of Skye, UK: Aquila, 1982. Edited *''A Treasury of British Humor''. New York: Coward-McCann, 1942; Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1970. *''A Medieval Storybook''. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1970. *''A Romantic Storybook''. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1971. *''A Renaissance Storybook''. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1971. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Morris Bishop, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, May 24, 2015. External links *"How to Treat Elves," full text online: @ucla.edu, @roberttriptow.com References External links ;Poems *Morris Bishop in Poetry: A magazine of verse, 1912-1922: "Ante Proelium," "Before My Fire in a French Village," "Le Père Segret," "The Piker," "Ecclesiastes," "A New Hampshire Boy" Category:1893 births Category:1973 deaths Category:Cornell University alumni Category:Cornell University faculty Category:Rice University staff